Multiple Charges Filed In San Jose Walmart Rampage

A driver crashed into a San Jose Walmart on Sunday. (Reginald Williams, Special to CBS)

Scene inside a San Jose Walmart after a driver crashed his car into the store, March 30, 2013. (Reginald Williams, Special to CBS)

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – A man was charged Thursday with attempted murder and other crimes for alleged violent rampages at a Walmart store and a gas station in two separate San Jose incidents, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

For that incident, prosecutors charged Zaid with two counts of attempted murder and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly using a metal club to bludgeon three people at the Walmart.

The complaint also lists three charges of hit-and-run, one count of reckless driving and one count of vandalism because Zaid allegedly caused more than $65,000 in damage to glass doors and windows at the Walmart, according to prosecutors.

The other two counts—assault with a deadly weapon and felony vandalism—stem from an incident on Dec. 16, when prosecutors said Zaid crashed into a car at the intersection of Hillsdale and Meridian avenues in San Jose and then drove through the double glass doors of a Chevron gas station store at 735 W. Capitol Expressway. Two people were injured in that incident.

Zaid was arraigned on all of the charges Thursday at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. A judge denied him bail and set a plea hearing for April 10.

According to the district attorney’s office, Zaid’s actions leading up to the crash into Walmart began around 11 a.m. on Easter Sunday.

Haamid Zaid is accused of ramming his car into a Walmart in San Jose and assaulting several people on March 31, 2013. (SJPD)

Witnesses reported seeing him driving a 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass recklessly through a neighborhood in East San Jose and then others watched him drive in the Walmart parking lot, according to prosecutors.

Zaid allegedly veered around the crowded lot, barely missing some people, then rammed into a car, stopped, revved the Oldsmobile’s engine, sped forward and crashed through the store’s front glass doors, prosecutors said.

He then allegedly backed the car up, stopped again, drove further inside the store and finally became stuck in a tangle of shopping carts, according to the district attorney’s office.

Zaid exited his car and began to swing a metal club, striking at least three people and knocking a store employee unconscious, prosecutors said.

According to a San Jose police report filed in support of the complaint, one of the victims was a store employee on his way to lunch when he witnessed the car crash into the store.

The employee told police he walked toward the smoking, wrecked car, noticed people fleeing from the store and then suffered injuries to his head and shoulder but could not remember what happened.

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